Quote:
Originally Posted by Obijon
I don't really see the price as the issue here. It's still an issue of fairness. Singling out all smartphone users with an extra data charge is no better than targeting only 4G phone users. The feature phones out today are just as capable of using a high amount of data. My wife uses an LG Optimus mainly because she liked the way the phone looked. I can guarantee I used more data on the old Samsung Instinct I had.
I'm sure data use has increased with smartphone sales. But is that really the only thing or even the main thing gobbling up bandwidth? What about all the mobile broadband users? I use Virgin Mobile's unlimited $40 service on my laptop and probably use more data than 4 or 5 average smartphone users. How can you ask smartphone users to to cover the cost of increased network usage caused by many different factors? I'm guessing some marketing analysts concluded that smartphone users probably have the deeper pockets as a whole and were least likely to be upset about a little $10 fee.
I understand that plan rates can go up over time. But it should be just that. An increase to unlimited data plans. Not targeting users of certain phones. But that's not an option since it would raise the advertised rate. Making the plans initial price a little closer to the competition and less attractive to new customers.
Taking away many of the early upgrades then slapping on an extra data charge seems like a pretty foolish move. Especially for a company with a history of retention problems, competing in a tough market.
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This concept is not new..metroPCS and others charged extra for smartphones, and Verizon and others enforced data plans...
Virgin mobile is owned by sprint and is part of their prepaid stuff...so they may not go that route but overall it is true that smartphones use more data...simply since they are capable with syncing data via 3g...none smartphones usually utilize 2g to sync and only get headers then get content on demand...